While beans and brews are generally the stars of the show at any of Houndstooth Coffee‘s other four retail locations, there’s one star that might matter even more to its fifth and latest shop in the Lone Star state: The sun.

In two opposite-facing “tiny houses” pre-designed by Lake Flato Architects, the 7-year-old roasting and retail company’s new location is powered entirely by solar energy and will soon offer eight Tesla supercharging stations at its ample parking to boot.

Photo courtesy of Houndstooth Coffee Roasters.

Built using sustainable materials and techniques and united by a central porch, Houndstooth’s new shop consists of a 650-square-foot main coffeeshop house that opens onto a 1,200-square-foot porch, with another 350-square-foot house on the other side dubbed “the school house” for its intended use as a lounge for students and other laptop-toting customers. The school house is also available to be rented for meetings or other events.

Photo courtesy of Houndstooth Coffee Roasters.

The new Houndstooth also shares property with TreeHouse, a home improvement store specializing in sustainable materials and resources that is described as having the reputation in Dallas of being “the world’s first energy positive big-box store.” Sean Henry, owner/founder of Houndstooth Coffee, told Daily Coffee News that the inspiration for the progressive new café was a combination of environmental and financial responsibility.

Photo by Brandon Lajoie, courtesy of Houndstooth Coffee.

“A lot of it is employing energy efficiency, from insulation to windows to finish materials,” Henry said. “They are all made from renewable sources or help cut energy costs. Even our fans and lights use one tenth of the energy as others in the segment.”

In the café house, a Mavam under-counter espresso installation — which is the first to go live in Texas, according to the company — is designed to be shut off overnight and to maintain its temperature with cost-cutting efficiency. The Mavam is paired with Nuova Simonelli Mythos grinders, while a Mahlkonig EK43 grinds for Curtis batch brews.

Photo courtesy of Houndstooth Coffee Roasters.

The company’s expansion continues this winter with shop number six, which will be the third Houndstooth in Austin. Henry said that while they do hope to employ some of the energy efficiency tricks from the tiny houses on future projects, the upcoming Austin shop has actually been in the works for longer than the new Walnut Hill location. Said Henry, “It’s just taking way longer to finally open.”

Photo courtesy of Houndstooth Coffee Roasters.

The new East Austin location is slated to open as part of a mixed-use development called Platform. The solar-powered Walnut Hill location of Houndstooth Coffee is open now at 9730 N. Central Expressway, at The Hill Shopping Center in North Dallas.

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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the associate editor of Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine. He is based in Portland, Oregon.